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Thursday, June 9, 2011

Guest Post: Is The Debt Problem As Bad As They Say?

(snippet)

Recently I caught one of these talking head financial experts on TV arguing about debt levels in the United States. He was saying that the US debt doesn't matter all that much because the US government has so many assets to offset its debt.

For example, he suggested that things like the highway system, national parks, and strategic petroleum reserve would more than offset America's liabilities, so the looming national debt isn't such a big deal after all.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) puts out an annual financial report that looks and feels like corporate financial statements... of course, the US government doesn't have to abide by the same accounting principles as the private sector, so they get to cheat quite a bit in overstating their position.

The most recent report is signed off by Tim Geithner and includes oodles of newspeak from the Ministry of Plenty about how dazzling their economic recovery measures have been. Needless to say, the numbers paint a different picture.

Even when you add up -all- of the assets, right down to every desk, chair, and lifeguard stand, and even if you throw in a healthy boost to the asset column to account for premiums in the market value for land and "gold" in Fort Knox, the government is still in the hole to the tune of over $10 trillion. It would take more than 300,000 years to count that high.

And yet, the fake recovery is vanishing, the dollar keeps falling against anything of real value, and the average guy on the street is realizing limited benefit for his share of the debt and inflation burdens. How is this possible?More Here..

1 comment:

gunna be a bummer when all the highways are tolled, nat parks have horrendous fee's, all owned by foreign and domestic wealth funds. state parks here started this $10 day use fee..lol. glad I grew up in the 60's and 70's..and don't blame the older gen, many of us spoke and pushed about withdrawaling the US from the UN in the 80's, spoke up about nafta, and many other things, but we were minority, then and now. but many are still speaking, and some about bible prophecy, will any hear now? dictators coming, but you can save your soul